None of Miss Gradwyn’s belongings had been touched, and her briefcase was next door, still propped against the bureau in the sitting room. A large metallic suitcase on wheels stood beside the chest of drawers. Dalgliesh placed his murder bag—a description which persisted despite the fact that it was now a fitted attaché case—on the folding baggage stool. He opened it, and he and Kate put on their search gloves.

Miss Gradwyn’s handbag, made of green leather with a silver clasp and shaped like a Gladstone bag, was obviously a designer model. Inside was a set of keys, a small address book, a pocket engagement diary and a wallet with a set of credit cards attached to a purse containing four pounds in coins and sixty pounds in twenty- and ten-pound notes. There was also a handkerchief, her chequebook in a leather cover, a comb, a small bottle of perfume and a silver ballpoint pen. In the pocket designed for it they found her mobile phone.

Kate said, “Normally you would expect this to be on the bedside table. It looks as if she didn’t want any calls.”

The mobile was small and a new model. Flicking it open and switching it on, Dalgliesh checked the calls and messages. The old text messages had been deleted, but there was one new one, which was listed as received from “Robin” and read: Something very important has cropped up. I need to consult you. Please see me, please don’t shut me out.

Dalgliesh said: “We’ll need to identify the sender to see if this urgency involved his coming to the Manor. But that can wait. I just want to take a quick look at the other patients’ rooms before we start the questioning. Dr. Glenister said that the killer was wearing gloves. He or she would want to get rid of them as quickly as possible. If they were surgical gloves, they could have been cut up and disposed of down one of the WCs. Anyway, it’s worth a look. This oughtn’t to wait for the SOCOs.”

They were lucky. In the bathroom of the suite at the far end of the corridor they found a minute fragment of latex, fragile as a piece of human skin, caught under the rim of the lavatory bowl. Dalgliesh carefully detached it with tweezers, placed it in an evidence bag and closed it, and he and Kate scribbled their initials over the seal.

Dalgliesh said, “We’ll let the SOCOs know about this find when they arrive. This is the suite they need to concentrate on, particularly the walk-in cupboard in the bedroom, the only bedroom which has one. One more pointer to this being an inside job. And now I’d better telephone Miss Gradwyn’s mother.”